Blood Tastes Metallic
by Amethyst-Req
Summary: Amelia Colette Edson, known as Ace to most, is an engineer prodigy. Her intellect has been commissioned by NEST to help the Autobots when in need of a mechanical technician while the war continues. As her talents become irreplaceable among the base and the war turns brutal, Amelia begins to see things in ways she never expected to, with a machine she never expected to fall for.
1. Pilot

Amelia took a deep breath through her nose, pressing the protective thin layer of scarf closer to her face. The desert winds howled around her, whipping the long strands of crimson hair the strong dry gusts had ripped out of her disheveled bun she had thrown up in haste earlier that morning to prepare for the desert heat. She squinted, knowing the main building of the military base she had just been escorted to was near, but for the love of her the sand the desert storm had kicked up made it near impossible to see. A hand came to rest upon her right arm, gripping her lower bicep with more force than necessary.

"This way, Miss Edson!" the man the hand belonged to called, close to her ear. He had his free arm upraised, trying to shield his face from the cutting sand. Several more forms appeared around her; two in suits, most in standard desert camouflage army uniform. The man holding her arm ushered her towards the base, and soon she found herself within its walls.

Glad to be finally protected from the vicious storm taking place outside, Amelia pushed the scarf from her face, a slightly irritated scowl having fixed itself on her features. She blinked, and sand fell from her lashes. She repressed a sigh, knowing she would be finding sand for the next two days.

"Good afternoon, Miss Edson. I hope you traveled well?" A man flanked by two soldiers addressed her as he walked up, a polite smile on his face. He was handsome, with an angular jaw and strong dark eyes.

"Ace, please. Good to see you in once piece still, Lennox." A small curve of her lips told him she was genuinely pleased to know her comment was true. The last time they had met years ago, aliens were unknown to the world they lived in. She had heard much though since then, and she always worried for her fellow soldiers.

"You know me, I'm a pain to get rid of," Will Lennox chuckled good-heartedly, his hand coming up. Amelia extended her own, clasping his forearm as he did hers.

"Ain't that the truth," said a voice behind them with a smile.

"And it is always a pleasure to see you, too, Epps." Amelia moved to stand so she could clearly see both of her acquaintances, crossing her arms over her chest lightly. "It has certainly been awhile."

"Indeed, Ace. To tell you the truth, I'm glad to see you're doing better than the last time I heard of you," Epps said, his dark eyes shifting ever so subtly to her left side, where her metal fingers tapped lightly at her right arm's forearm. Unabashed, and ever so proud at her latest improvement of her prosthetic arm, she uncrossed her arms and lifted the metal appendage, curling her fingers. The harsh lights in the unceremoniously small room reflected off the metal as she turned her wrist and stretched her fingers once more.

"Thank you. It is my latest design," she smiled. _If it could be called 'latest'_, she thought. She had designed the arm, and most of her leg, years ago, with only miniscule upkeep tweaks since.

"Full mobility?" Lennox asked, his eyebrows raised in admiration and awe of the arm. It moved like a real arm, the bend of the elbow and flex of the fingers. It was beyond impressive.

"Yes, one would never miss flesh. I even have toes!" Amelia flashed a stunning smile, her teeth appearing almost blindingly white against her sand abused skin, her face haloed by a mass of tangled scarlet curls. To prove herself, she leaned over to raise the pant leg of her slacks, and lifted her left leg from the low high-heel to wiggle her metal toes.

Amelia Colette Edson, known by most as "Ace", was an engineering prodigy. As an only child, at home she had much free time to tinker with anything that crossed her path. When she got older, she breezed through her college's engineering program and joined the army as an engineer technician. Most of her work had been on the military vehicles, in between battles restoring them to their full functionality with little more than literally some string and camel patties once. Ace was in the army until one of her very few miscalculated steps left her without the entirety of both her left appendages, and scars raging up over her ribs and left shoulder blade almost six years ago.

But Amelia breathed machinery, and craved the fight almost as much. After her rehabilitation, she was contracted in an engineering research facility designing weapons for private groups of the military. Amelia had designed and built more classified weapons than even she could count. Her own work on herself had been a side project, though important people quickly caught wind of her impeccable designs. The commissions had flooded her facility from hospitals across the world. Her inventions had broken into an entirely new world for individuals like herself.

Proud of her work she was, however Amelia was not a woman who wished to spend her days cramped in a facility, no matter the size. She yearned for action, movement, new ideas, and challenges. Over the past few years, Amelia had begun to realize she had fallen into a rut of sorts, and although she enjoyed her work, when the summon came from a comrade she had not heard from in years for a new job, she jumped at the opportunity.

Especially because she would be working with _them_.

"Very impressive, Ace. You never cease to amaze," started Lennox, smiling still at her wiggling toes. "Now, let's get you settled in. Your bags have been taken to the barracks for you, where you'll be staying while you're here with us." Lennox smiled a toothy grin, noticing Amelia's emerald eyes spark with contained excitement as they began walking through corridors of the base. Occasionally, Lennox would have to swipe a key card and punch in a very long code to have the doors swish open.

"You'll be getting your own key card within the next day or so," he told her. She nodded absently mindly, unable to pay close attention to him because the latest door his trusty key card had unlocked opened a huge hangar.

* * *

**AN: I know this chapter is outrageously short, but have no fear! This was just a "test the water" kind of chapter. They will only get longer from here on out.**


	2. Impressions

Amelia rose before her alarm clock screamed that morning, a not unusual characteristic of herself for she believed sleep a waste of time. Though the clock told her it was four in the morning and she had only just gone to bed three hours before, she felt awake and ready to begin a day once more.

Knowing the base would be quiet and empty, but unwilling to return to bed, Amelia dressed quickly in her running gear, shorts with a thin black t-shirt, and set off on her run around the base. This had become a morning routine for her while she stayed at the military head-quarters, developing into a time she mentally prepared herself for the day, and also serving as a sort of physical therapy; the condition of her two metal appendages depended on constant exercise.

Not to mention it gave her something to _do_.

_"You'll be getting your own key card within the next day or so," he told her. She nodded absently mindly, unable to pay close attention to him because the latest door his trusty key card had unlocked opened a huge hangar._

_They stood upon a tall metal balcony that stretched the perimeter of the hangar, with an adjacent connecting balcony separating the two halves of the large room. Several bays had been set up in the garage, and dozens of individuals moved along its concrete floor. Some were typing on computers, others held charts and chatted idly. The room was impressively large, with a one hundred foot tall ceiling. Lights hung, illuminating the large room. On the far side of the hangar was an enormous lift, much like a door on a domestic garage. Outside, she could hear the roar of the desert sand storm._

_It was incredibly mundane, however. Because besides those few definitely _human_ individuals below, the hangar was empty._

_Amelia's brows furrowed (she refused to acknowledge the sand that fell in the movement from her eyebrows), and turned to face Lennox. However, she was only given the chance to open her mouth before the major beat her to words._

_"They aren't here right now, and I can't say for sure when they will be back. Search and destroy mission." Lennox folded his hands behind him. He nodded to the hangar floor below. "This however, is where you'll be working."_

That had been almost a week ago.

Though in a way she should be happy the Autobots were out of the hangar when she arrived. It gave her ample time to prepare her bay for her work. The week alone without distraction allowed her to set up the readers and tools she had brought from her facility, align her charts and calenders, and be debriefed on the continuous war. The events that took place in Mission City less than a month ago left Amelia feeling quiet.

_"Where is this Sam Witwicky now?" she had asked, her fingers digging into one of the many boxes of files. It was day three and she had just started to sort and separate her mounds of research notes and binders filled with her work on Megatron during the research at the Hoover Dam to use as references while she worked on the Autobots. Lennox had taken this time to tell her what the media, and her army contacts, had not told her about the Autobots and Decepticons. _

_"Safe, home. We keep tabs on him. A particularly good tab," Lennox smiled, as if enjoying his own private joke. She quirked an eyebrow at him, but otherwise ignored it._

_Amelia's fingers slipped over a particularly favorited thick notebook. She flipped the first few pages idly, sighing quietly. This had been her personal journal recounting her time with Megatron in his frozen state. The internal workings of his structure, her hypothesis of how exactly Energon worked, even a complete detailed documentation of the Spark. Of course, the terms she now knew and the terms in the journal were very different. Only recently did she learn of the correct names, a discovery that still left her feeling giddy. Soon, she would have answers to so many questions she had for the anatomy and mechanical workings of the Transformers. Though she had boxes and boxes of manual notes on the Decepticon leader, the longing for more information led to her sigh._

_"It is a shame N.B.E. 1 is crumbled at the bottom of the ocean," she murmured softly to herself, still turning the pages. She still had many more experiments she had wished to attempt, but her year internship at the Dam had come and gone too quickly._

_"If you had met him other than as a popsicle, you wouldn't be saying that," Lennox said darkly, more than he had intended. Amelia closed the notebook with a snap._

_"I'm so sorry, how crass of me to say," she apologized, shoving the notebook onto the shelf with the rest of the notes. "I only meant on a scientific level. Please forgive my insensitivity."_

_"Eh, it's fine," he shrugged, but got up from his perch on an empty desk. "I'm just glad he's rotting with the fishies and not up here." Lennox left after that, leaving her to her thoughts and the rest of the file unpacking._

Amelia's run took her outside the base as well; she enjoyed watching the sunrise in the desert. The air outside was chilly, still cool from the night before. Still too early for the sun to rise, Amelia turned to begin another lap when a flickering light caught her attention. She paused in her jog, her eyes leading her to the line of Plexiglas windows above the hangar door. Again, a light flickered, this time remaining on. Wondering if perhaps maybe she was not the only early bird on base after all, Amelia turned to jog back into the base.

She followed the necessary corridors that led to the hangar, moving gracefully in her running clothes. After she slid the keycard that she kept with her (at all times, Lennox told her) into the keyswipe and quietly moved through the open doors onto the balcony of the hangar, her eyes scanned the floor and her feet led her to the stairs.

But she paused at the top, her emerald eyes narrowing a fraction.

There was no one in the hangar.

Moving into a crouch on the top step, she silently made her way to the concrete floor, all the while her olive hues scanning the hangar suspiciously. Her brow furrowed, her eyes having confirmed that indeed, there was no one in the large garage.

Straightening from her crouch, yet still unable to shake the feeling of being watched, she instead moved across the hangar to her own work area to maybe straighten the last of the files before Lennox appeared in the hangar with breakfast, knowing she would already be up. She looked forward to these small human moments they shared, even though it was just as simple as him bringing a muffin from the dining hall on base. Amelia considered Lennox a friend, something of which she had few, and she enjoyed his company while she rummaged through the battlefield known as paperwork.

Amelia had just put her hands on the laptop when an unfamiliar sound startled her. She shot up from her chair, and in one fluid motion had pressed her back into one of the bay walls, her ears straining to hear any other movement. She gritted her teeth when she was met with silence.

Ace wasn't usually this jumpy, this paranoid. But the flickering lights, the unshakeable feeling of being watched, and the eerie, unfamiliar sound she had just heard left her with the instinctual feeling of danger. Once again lowering herself to the floor, she quietly moved forward and pressed a hand under her desk, her fingers feeling around momentarily before wrapping around her designated object. She pulled the Browning Hi-Power from its holster bolted to the bottom of her desk and clicked off the safety while she crouched against the bay's wall. She was ex-military, after all.

With a silent inhale, Amelia shifted to look beyond the threshold of the bay's opening. She quickly scanned the area the sound had come from, but again was left with her eyebrows knitted together in a puzzled look. The area was empty.

Well, empty save for a few very shiny cars that had definitely _not_ been there when she left her bay only a few hours ago.

Amelia stood from her crouch again, and stepped out from her bay. She shook her head, tucking the Browning in the back of her shorts with a sigh. She was definitely getting too edgy for her own good. One of these days she was going to shoot her own foot off, and she was sure she didn't need any more metal parts.

With a quiet sigh, she tilted her head at the cars, wondering where exactly they had come from. They looked too nice to be military issue vehicles, one of them being even a silver Corvette. She quirked an eyebrow at them while she moved past the vehicles, making a mental note to ask Lennox what they were doing here when he arrived. She glanced at the clock on one of the hangar beams.

_Which should be soon_, she thought to herself.

At the back of the group of the very atypical cars was an even more extrinsic Peterbilt semi-trailer truck. But it wasn't so much the fact that it was a truck that perplexed her, but because it adorned a very unusual paint job for a military hangar. Not the usual camouflage, as Amelia moved closer she realized that they were red and blue flames painted across the front and doors. The outlandish taste of whoever painted the truck made a small smile tug at the engineer's mouth. But she had to give credit to the painter, for the flames almost appeared to jump out of her, and before she gave a second thought, she reached out with a flesh hand to touch one, gentle not to scratch the paint.

Not a breath after her fingers had brushed the cool metal and sent a shock through her frame, behind her a deafening hydraulic whirling erupted. Amelia, started by such a harsh sound so suddenly, spun in time to see the huge black GMC truck shift, seeming to sit back on its haunches and stand, its frame change leaving Amelia wide-eyed in awe, quickly grasping the situation.

_These are the Autobots_, she screamed at herself, wondering how she could have been so stupid. The tension in her body eased slightly, realizing that they were indeed, just the Autobots.

However, it appeared she had relaxed too soon, for the GMC truck Transformer had a very big, very hot cannon pointed at her, ready to send her to the next life.

When half of Amelia's appendages had been wasted, she knew that she may never fight again. The military would never allow a "cripple" to hold arms. But Amelia had always craved the fight, always wanted to return to the frontline where she belonged. So when she had lost two of her best weapons, she built new, stronger ones out of metal for herself. She made the frames ten times stronger than regular bone, and the joints able lift six times as much as her flesh knee could. Though it had taken much rehabilitation to get use to the imbalance of strength between her two legs, it was well worth the wait. Because today, Amelia was _fast_.

And she would have to be, because the heat of the burning cannon told her she had to move. _Now._

She dove, out of line of the cannon that had set off, leaving a small burnt crater in the place she had just been staring doe-eyed a second before. The gun slid across the hangar floor, having fallen from its nesting place in her shorts. Not like she could use it against a four ton robot anyway, she thought, gritting her teeth. Amelia rolled on the concrete of the hangar before gracefully using the momentum to stand. This time though, she wasn't a deer caught in headlights. Instead, she opted to run.

A table with two computers exploded in front of her, having been hit by Ironhide's cannon. The force of the explosion sent her back in the air, her fall broken by the folding table adjacent to the computer table though her head hit the concrete of the hangar floor too hard. The crash of her fall left her breathless, a bruising pain forming in her lower back from hitting the table, and her shoulder bled, cut by shrapnel from the blast. Amelia groaned quietly. She knew that battle would always be a part of her, but definitely didn't like when she was losing. And from the way the world spun, she was losing badly.

"Decepticon," someone hissed near her. Amelia was faintly aware of the heat of the cannon once more, but it all was happening too fast for her to pick herself back up in time. She barely even noticed when Lennox and several others came crashing through the door of the hangar, his hands upraised. She believed he was shouting, but the words were lost to her. All she knew was the heat on her face, knowing that even if he was shouting for it to stop, it was too late. She knew how cannons worked.

Suddenly though, the heat was gone and a cool breath of air washed over her. It was almost enough to clear the blur of her headache. She moved to sit up only to realize that she could not, and her vision was speckled with black dots, the darkness playing at the edges of her sight, slowing closing over.

The last thing Amelia Edson noticed before she passed out was a blue light lighting up what little vision she retained, and a deep voice.

"This is no Decepticon."

And she remembered blue and red flames.

* * *

**AN: Woah, I wonder who that is!**

**Anyway, some of you may be confused how in the hell Ironhide could confuse Amelia for a Decepticon. For those of you too impatient to wait for Chapter 3: You know Amelia did tons of research and work on Megatron, who was the basis for the computer chip, telephones, cars, etc. He was ALSO the basis for, you guessed it, her arm and leg! And because of the design and type of metal, the Autobots are thoroughly confused at what exactly our Amelia is.**

**Also! There are such things known as, "Pretender" Decepticons. They're decepticons who take on human forms. (Yeah, that blonde chick Alice from Revenge of the Fallen is a Pretender Decepticon. She's the chick who pretends to be a student and tries to get all freaky on Sam in college.)**

**But otherwise, thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think.**

**- Amethyst**


	3. Misunderstood

Optimus Prime was exhausted. This search and destroy mission had taken considerably longer than the others: a full week and a half's worth. It had first started all the way in Beijing, China, a receptor message having been picked up on one of the hangar's many tracking instruments to locate stray Decepticons. The trail had been cold by the time they reached the bustling city, but a stroke of luck met them when Will sent word that the blip had moved to New Delhi, India, where they had indeed encountered a group of Deceptions hiding in a long abandoned monk bath house high in the mountains. The stone building had been ancient, and Optimus knew Ratchet felt slightly guilty having destroyed the palace amidst the battle. Ratchet had always been curious of the many different human religions on the Earth world, this particular temple worshipping a goddess with seven arms. Perhaps if circumstances had permitted, he would have taken time to admire the extrinsic and beautiful carvings and paintings adorning the walls of the temple. But circumstances had not allowed it, and currently what was left of the temple was lying at the bottom of the mountain in a heap of rubble.

The Autobots were home now, and that's really all they cared about in that moment.

"Man, can I get my nap on, puh-lease?" Mudflap threw his arms over his head in a stretch, the bot obviously exaggerating a loud yawn. A yawn which was promptly cut off by a quick jab to the abdomen by his twin.

"We all could if ya'd shut the fuck up fa once." Skids said as Mudflap doubled over, complaining.

"Man, jeez! Why you gotta do that for?" Mudflap tackled Skids, the twins rolling on the floor of the hangar and bumping into one of the supporting beams. The lights flickered off momentarily, bathing the hangar in darkness for a moment, but the twins continued, heedless to the potential damage and hit the beam again, the lights flickering on once more.

"Autobots."

A deep voice with a warning tone interlaced in the sound vibrated throughout the hangar. The twins rolled to a stop, Mudflap giving Skids a final sharp shove.

"See, now you gone and made the big man mad, stupid," Mudflap whined, the twins moving deeper into the hangar.

Optimus sighed internally, ignoring the continuing jibes the twins threw at one another. It had been a long mission, and they were all ready for several hours of missed stasis. Sideswipe moved to the Autobot's leader's side.

"The humans will be up soon. Lennox will want to be debriefed on the mission's outcome," he murmured tiredly, both of them slowly making way to the far edge of the hangar. The twins had already transformed into their ice cream trucks, the unusual silence proving just how tired they actually were.

"Do not worry, my friend. The human captain will know not to bother us for at least a few hours," he replied. This mission, though long, was hardly exciting. Sideswipe's only response was a nod, the silver Autobot transforming quietly into the sleek Corvette, going silent.

Optimus took note of the hangar. It was quiet, unsurprising of the very early hours of the Earth's morning. The rest of the Autobots had transformed to their vehicle forms, a preferred state to slip into stasis mode. Following suit of his fellow Autobots, with a quiet hydraulic whirl Optimus collapsed into the Peterbilt comfortably, performing an internal analysis while he thought. They had all returned safely, to which Optimus thanked Primus for every mission, no matter how miniscule it seemed. Losing Jazz only a month before had left the leader feeling more anxious than he used to when entering battle with his company. After the long war on Cybertron, Optimus believed he was beyond this almost crippling affect losing a comrade had. But here, on Earth, the Autobots had made a new home, had found a new purpose. Optimus, though never far from battle, had gotten used to the strength of his triage, almost for a time wondering if they would be indestructible to the dwindling power of the Decepticons here. He had always feared for his subordinates, but after the death of his second-in-command, it had felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped in his Spark chamber. It made the threat of loss all too real here on Earth.

With the analysis complete, and the lull of stasis becoming even more apparent in this form, Optimus put his thoughts to an end to enter stasis.

However, just before the unconscious mode claimed him, his systems alerted him to an unfamiliar presence in the hangar. The presence was slow moving, by the doors at the top of the stairs that led further into the military base. It stopped at the top of the stairs before continuing down the steps. The movement would have been silent to human ears, however to a Transformer's receptors the steps were amplified in the otherwise quiet hangar.

**Autobots**, Optimus sent over their telecommunications. His tone was once again warning, but for an entirely different reason.

**We sense it,** Ironhide sent back gruffly. His agitation was clearly delivered over the static at being disturbed from stasis, in their own base no less. The presence they sensed belonged to no one residing at the hangar.

The intruder appeared in Optimus' line of sight, and he supposed in the back of his mind had he been human, his eyebrows would have touched his hairline.

The figure that appeared had a mass of crimson curls pulled back into a high pony-tail, however the ends of her hair still reached her waist. She had vibrant green eyes that were narrowed, scanning the floor of the hangar suspiciously. At closer inspection with zoomed oculars, Optimus could see a dusting of light freckles over her cheeks and nose.

**This Pretender's development in human mimicry is astonishing**, came Ratchet's voice through the bot's communication line.

Optimus had to agree. The Decepticon Pretenders he had encountered in the past may have looked human enough, but there were certain attributes that always gave them away to the Autobots. They always seemed to walk like they were sauntering, too prideful and arrogant. This one walked cautiously, and had a modest air about her.

_It_, Optimus corrected. This Pretender really was good. He couldn't even pick up the usual Decepticon signals on his radar. Optimus became slightly concerned at this because if it weren't for one very big giveaway, he would have believed this red-headed Decepticon to be human.

But she was half metal.

And the Autobots knew that design like their own.

**Man, what the fuck is it?**, Skids sent over, voicing the confusion all of them felt.

**More importantly, can we kill it?**, Sideswipe pitched in, seeming a little too eager to carry out the deed. He most of all hated to be disturbed from stasis.

**No**, Optimus decided before Sideswipe could decide to act. **Whatever it is, it does not seem to be aware of our presence.**

Indeed, the woman figure had moved across the hangar's floor and slipped into one of the far bays, seeming to have completely missed the Autobots. This left Optimus beginning to suspect that they were not dealing with a Pretender afterall. No Decepticon would allow the Autobots to go unnoticed, especially in their own home front.

**Optimus, it is about to use a computer**, Ratchet informed the group, having initiated his thermal oculars to see into the bay.

**Let's get the fucker!**, Mudflap sent, the beginnings of his hydraulic whirling sounding incredibly loud in the once hushed hangar.

**Wait**.

Optimus Prime's command immediately stumped Mudflap's transformation. The leader of the Autobots did not want to instantly kill the presence, no matter how confusing it proved to be. Everything about her, _it_, screamed human. All but the quiet whirl of her left leg as she walked, the knee joint a replica of a Decepticon's layout, and the frame of her left arm, her fingers making a faint tinkling as they brushed each other.

**She is now armed**, Ratchet stated, but there was the hint of confusion in his message.

**What is it, Ratchet?**, Jolt asked, his first words of the night.

But Ratchet did not have to answer, because the figure slid fluidly from the bay, still in a crouched position her emerald eyes scanning the large garage suspiciously. But that was not what confused the Autobots to Pit and back.

It was the fact she wielded a gun. A normal, human weapon.

**Is this Decepticon stupid, or what?**, one of the twins chimed. Which exact one was lost to Optimus, his focus on the delicate figure that had tucked the gun away and was now walking up to the bots idly, a hint of wariness in her stance but otherwise unthreatening.

A whisper of a sigh came from the stranger as she inspected the Autobots with a tilted head. Her scarlet tangles slipped over a shoulder and her eyebrows furrowed at them. The perplexed expression confirmed Optimus' doubts.

_She is human,_ Optimus realized with a start.

The girl had wound her way through the Autobots, her eyebrows remaining pulled together as she inspected the cars, seeming to be in deep thought. When she came to a stop in front of Optimus, he imagined he may have held his breath for she stood very close. A small smile curved her lips, the motion relaxing her visage in a way Optimus could not deny was pleasant.

Optimus does not know why he did not just transform and show himself to this girl. He didn't know why he allowed her so close, her fingers brushing the side of his door with calloused fingertips. He supposed he should have done something besides just watch the curious emerald eyed redhead.

And he definitely should have told the Autobots she was human.

Not a breath after her fingers brushed the side of his door, Ironhide had had enough of the intruder. He reared back menacingly, his GMC truck travel form folding out to become the enormous weapon's specialist, his cannon directed at the stranger with every intention of exterminating it.

The girl, who had spun so fast to face Ironhide her hair flew around her face in some kind of blood colored halo, dove away from the two, barely missing the heat of the cannon as it blew into the concrete floor of the hangar, leaving a small crater.

Optimus stood, the mechanical gyre of his transformation queuing the rest of the Autobots into their own transformations.

A table exploded from Ironhide's hit, sending the girl back and crashing into a separate table, her ungraceful tumble leaving her dazed on the floor. Ironhide shifted the cannon's beam towards the girl.

"Decepticon," he hissed, rearing the cannon to lock upon the girl's fallen form.

Time did not stand still for Optimus as he moved, heeding to Lennox's shouts to stop as he and others crashed through the military base's door. Ironhide, lost to irritation or blood-thirst in his trigger-happy ways, did not hear Lennox, but even if he had it was too late to turn back now, the heat building in the center of his cannon.

The ceiling shuddered, pieces of debris and dust falling to the hangar's floor.

Optimus had knocked Ironhide's arm, his heavy metallic fingers grabbing the thick of his arm and shoving it up and away from the human woman lying in a concerning crumpled heap. The cannon went off, its heat now having torn a small hole at the top of the hangar.

"This is no Decepticon," Optimus told him, letting go of Ironhide's arm.

* * *

Amelia awoke with a headache.

Not the head cold headache that makes your brain feel like a giant cotton ball. Not the kind of headache you get after staying too long at the bar the night before with too many shots of Patron. And definitely not the headache that can be cured by a tall glass of water.

No, Amelia had the kind of headache that tells you you've been hit by a train and you need to stay the fuck in bed for the rest of the week.

She groaned, slowly, painfully, pulling herself up to a sitting position, her flesh hand raising to rub at the back of her head gingerly before a sharp pain in her shoulder made her hand drop back down the cot below her. She hissed, her eyes landing on a thick bandage covering her shoulder and upper arm. A tick had started in Amelia's left eye at the sight, a bubbling anger starting in her chest and heating her cheeks.

The Autobot had _attacked_ her.

It came back to her in a rush. The heat of the cannon, the table, the explosion and the cool blue light that seemed to take it all away, though she was sure it was just because it was there when she slipped into oblivion.

Amelia had just swung her legs off the cot in an angry flurry, her intentions to march back to the hangar and raise hell for almost being killed – she was in a hospital wing room, small and cozy – when the door opened and Lennox stepped in, two cups of steaming coffee in his hands.

"Good morning, hellcat," he said, noticing her irritated demeanor. He shut the door, moving to stand beside the bed. He placed the mugs on the end table beside it, and Amelia dimly wondered how he knew she would be awake and in need of a strong black cup of coffee.

"Not trying to get out of bed so soon, are ya? Took a mighty smash to the head there," Lennox chuckled, his fingers ghosting over the back of her head. He sucked in air through his teeth. "And earned a mighty bump with it."

Amelia's eyes rolled, swatting his hand away like a fly with her metal hand. Her flesh arm still hurt like hell. She grimaced at the bandage, picking at a stray thread with only angry interest. Lennox gave an exasperated sigh, his turn at swatting away her hand from the bandage.

"Listen, I know you're upset. But trust me, the Autobots are beating themselves up, especially Ironhide. He—"

"Ironhide. That's the one who tried—"

"Yes."

The twitch in Amelia's eye returned full force.

Amelia seethed. Rationally, she knew it was a misunderstanding. She knew, rationally, that they had just been defending the hangar. She had been an intruder to them, a stranger in their midst and they reacted as any soldier would when a potentially hostile individual presented themselves, in their own territory, no less.

_But still!_

"I have a headache," she opted to say instead when her mouth opened. Lennox nodded, expecting it.

"No painkillers for you yet until we're sure you don't have a concussion. In the meantime, drink your coffee and rest. Tomorrow we'll—"

"No," Amelia cut him off. She picked up the coffee, still a little too hot, and downed the contents. Feeling significantly better for such a small act, she stood from the bed and handed Lennox the mug with a steely resolution to her aura. "No more waiting."

And with that air of finality, Amelia walked out of the recovery room and started for the hangar.

All the while, Lennox followed sipping his coffee, a knowing gleam in his eyes and a smirk gracing his lips.

_This will be interesting. _

* * *

**AN: Phew, I loved writing this chapter. I would have had it up sooner but I've been in New York visiting family the past week. Please let me know what you think!**

**Chapter 4 will be up within the next three days. (: Promise.**


	4. Apologies

**AN: Probably should have mentioned this story starts RIGHT AFTER Movie 1, two years before ROTF.**

* * *

Amelia had made it five steps outside of the recovery hall before the world spun and her vision swam, the pounding in her head returning with a vengeance that drove her to her knees in the hallway, sliding down the stark-white wall. A figure came up from behind her, lowering to a crouch before her.

"Huh, not as far as I was expecting with all that anger but…" Lennox started, his voice joking but his face grim. Amelia was only partially aware to his hands coming up underneath her arms, lifting her to her feet and into his arms with not even the smallest of struggles.

Even so, he _had_ to open his mouth.

"God, you're heavy," he pretend wheezed, shifting the barely conscious woman in his arms to get a better grip. She really actually was a lot heavier than he had anticipated, but he supposed he really should have expected it; she was half metal after all.

* * *

Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose, the only indication that she was completely, irrevocably and hopelessly

pissed.

"Will you relax already?" Lennox dropped a folder on her work table, the one with blue-prints and a wielder she'd been toying with to pass the time. "They'll be back by tonight."

Amelia had indeed taken a much harder fall on the concrete floor during her and Ironhide's 'skirmish' three days ago than she had previously believed. She supposed she should feel lucky, as it was only a moderate concussion and nothing like cranial hemorrhaging or a fractured occipital bone. Even so, the severity of her reoccurring loss of the consciousness got her chained to a hospital bed for days. And when she was finally released from that hell hole?

They were on a mission.

Amelia considered bashing her head against the bay wall, but decided quickly that would be very counterproductive. And she supposed it wasn't so bad, because Lennox assured her, multiple times, that it was a simple scout mission and they would be back before sunset.

She flipped open the dark blue folder idly, chin in her hand, grimacing at the papers in front of her. For a mechanical engineer, she dealt with way too much paper.

Done with paper and eager to do something _productive_, Amelia shoved the blue-prints from her work table onto the floor – she promised herself she would actually file them later, right after this – and promptly stood from the desk. Slowly though, because her head still felt like it would fall off at times. Or implode.

* * *

She knew that they would be intelligent creatures.

Knew, of course, that they were self-aware, had emotions, spoke, thought. She knew that they would be the most intelligent organisms mankind have ever stumbled upon, or in this case, stumbled onto mankind. What Amelia had not been prepared for, had not expected from her first real meeting with the Autobots is how incredibly and eerily _human_ they were.

"Amelia."

Ace's eyes shot up at the voice. She sheepishly realized it was not the first time it had called her attention.

"Are you alight?" he asked, the deep baritone of his voice holding the slightest edge of concern.

"Aw, man, see Hidey? You gone and busted her up and now she can't talk!" a shorter Autobot yelled in exasperation. One of the twins. Skids? She wondered, trying to recall which twin was which.

"Yeah, apologize for yo stupid ass trying to blow our new engineer to Kingdom Come!" yelled the other, the two waving their arms at a much larger, darker colored Autbot.

Who, if Amelia had to guess, actually looked _uncomfortable_.

Ironhide cleared his throat, taking a small step (large, to Amelia) towards the human woman. "I-" he started in a thick accent she couldn't place, but seemed to realize his obvious embarrassment and in his efforts to hide it, crossed his arms and finished gruffly. "I am sorry for shooting my cannons at you." He avoided eye contact.

The whole first meeting had Amelia's headache returning full force. They had burst into the hangar, startling Amelia at her work table from the very delicate procedure of installing a microbeat into a hard drive. Her mouth had pressed into a thin line as the wield she'd been using scraped the edge of a golden line on the disk, effectively destroying its directory. She had stood slowly, yanking the rubber band from her hair and allowing the assemblage of red curls to cascade down her back in a disheveled frenzy. She tried in vain to keep the tick from her eye, having read somewhere that first impressions are very important when establishing long term relationships.

And the pang in her shoulder told her that this meeting had to go very well to even hope for a possible friendly environment.

She had been shocked however while observing the Autobots react to each other and to Lennox and Epps. While Amelia had taken up watch leaning her metal shoulder against a hangar beam with her arms loosely crossed, the group had chatted, argued, laughed, hit one another, and _played_. The twins rolled around the hangar, and a silver Autobot yelled at them, but the next time she looked over the larger silver 'bot had joined in on the fray, tumbling right along with a twin while the other clutched his abdomen and laughed. A yellow and red Autobot was welding the arm of a blue one, quietly chatting amongst themselves, and Lennox was speaking to the largest of the group, an easy smile on his face.

What hit Amelia suddenly left her with her eyes widening, and the hard knot of a feeling she didn't understand tightening in her chest.

She would not be simply studying and repairing machines this time. She would not be working with silent objects, experimenting with designs and adjusting controls. She would not be constructing something out of nothing anymore. No, what Ace faced next with the group in front of her would no doubt prove to be the most testing thing she had ever done.

She was a _doctor_.

It was the only word she could put to the situation. These were living, breathing, self-aware individuals that were the main event in a war zone. Living, breathing, self-aware individuals that sometimes were going to get hurt, and need her skills, her knowledge, her studies, her understanding of their anatomy, mechanics, everything.

They would need _her_.

Pulling her from her thoughts was the realization that Ironhide was still standing in front of her, his arms still crossed. But the silence from her had made his optics turn to her, the beginnings of awkwardness settling into the situation.

_Awkward_? Her brow furrowed. She was having an awkward moment with a _robot_. It was all so human, she almost would have laughed.

But she had a bone to pick with this guy. Her chin tilted, raising green hues to meet the blue optics staring at her with the slight impression of sheepishness.

Maybe it was because she had just realized the intensity of the job, or the ache in her shoulder, or the fact that she had been bored out of her mind for the past several days that made all the anger and frustration of the past week and a half rush up inside Amelia, spilling out before she could grit her teeth.

"You idiot!" she screeched, emerald eyes vibrant with her fury. "You could have _killed_ me!" Her curls were giant poofs of red surrounding her head and down her back, framing her face with all the more intensity as she clenched her fists at her sides. The anger felt good in her veins, much better than the growing dread and distress in her chest at the heavy responsibility that appeared out of nowhere from just a glance into the real lives of the Autobots. "You shot at me with _cannons_, you son of a bitch! And if you even thought for a minute that—"

"Spitfire."

Amelia blinked, her tantrum (she didn't have another word for it, much to her later dismay) cut short. Her brow furrowed at Ironhide.

"What?"

A grin was beginning to spread across the 'bot's façade. "You're like spitfire." And he laughed, a full throaty laugh. The twins joined followed closely by most of the other Autobots. If they weren't laughing, they were smiling. The laughter filled the hangar, a contagious sound that vibrated off the walls. Lennox had a hand pressed to her mouth, but the glint in his eyes gave him away.

Ironhide's laughs broke off for just a moment. "We are going to get along just fine, hellcat." Ironhide breathed good-heartedly, ironically using Lennox's earlier nickname, the others nodding or making noises of agreement between hysterics.

And maybe it was because she had just realized the intensity of the job, or the ache in her shoulder, or the fact that she had been bored out of her mind for the past several days that made the corners of Amelia's lips turn up in a smile.

* * *

"My name is Amelia Collette Edson, but you can call me Ace," she started. She was perched at the top of a balcony with Lennox, leaning into the railing with her elbows against the metal. Her eyes moved over each of the Autobot's easily from this height, instead of craning her head looking up. She had a hard time remembering to keep the friendly smile on her face; speaking had never been Amelia's forte.

"Ace? What's that short for?" Mudflap stage-whispered. A hand came up, shoving his face into the floor.

"It's her initials, stupid!" Skids planted a foot on the back of his brother's head. "Don't worry 'bout him, miss Ace."

"Hey, hey, ow! That hurts, man!" but Mudflap's complaining was shushed by the rest of the group.

Amelia fought the urge to chuckle. Instead, she shook her head and continued.

"I am sure you are wondering who I am besides the obvious. I am, indeed, an engineer technician who has been commissioned by the newly formed NEST to aid you in the only way I know how." Amelia straightened, her eyes developing a hard glint. "In a way, I am your NEST appointed surgeon."

The blue Autobot – Jolt, she remembered—stepped forward at this, "No offense," he started quietly, "But how can one mere human doctor _us_? Our make-up is nothing like you have ever seen. If any of us were to be injured, we would require more than just the common repairman."

Amelia's eye twitched once at the last comment, but she did indeed see the validity behind the inquiry. The corner of her mouth lifted in small smirk. "On the contrary, I have seen your make-up before. Two years ago I was an intern at the Hoover Dam."

The atmosphere shifted into one of shock. The twins looked at one another and the others, their confusion quickly voiced.

"Hoover Dam? So what? What so special about a damn dam?" Skids asked, his brother agreeing vocally. Amelia remembered that the twins had only just arrived, having missed the action in Mission City.

"Megatron." A low voice sounded a little ways from the group. Amelia's, along with every other person's, attention turned to the largest of the Autobots, their leader.

Optimus Prime, her brain supplied for her.

He stood at the back of the group, arms crossed, his attention focused out the huge bay doors of the hangar. His back had been to them, but she knew he had to have been listening to catch her meaning. He turned, his arms uncrossing as he slowly closed the distance between himself and the group.

"You studied Megatron." It had not been a question, but the intense stare of the Autobot's leader made her want to answer anyway.

"Yes. For over a year." She said, his gaze never leaving hers. She blinked, turning her attention to the others. "I studied N.B—" she caught herself, "Megatron in an internship at the Dam. I was tasked with a complete anatomical diagnostic and system recovery analysis." A slow breath escaped her, remembering the painstakingly slow process it had been. "It took a great amount of time." Her eyes rose to meet Jolt's optics. "But I assure you, I am qualified."

A comfortable silence fell over the group as they pondered this new information, some of them nodding in agreement. To have spent such time studying a Transformer would grant a person access to some of their complexity. However…

"However, Megatron as you know wasn't functioning when I was with him. There are several things that I have to learn from you, each of you, that were impossible to learn from Megatron if I were to be truly useful. With that said, I would like to have one on one time with all of you. To put it simply, I need to understand how each of you work, so in the event any of you are injured, I know what goes where. Kind of like a physical." Ace leaned forward against the railing again, linking her fingers.

Optimus looked to his group, having expected such from the engineer. "We will comply with your request."

"Yeah, physical," Mudflap's tone of voice suggested eyebrows waggling. Skids shoved his foot in harder, muffling Mudflap's retorts to the extra abuse.

Amelia scoffed through her nose quietly, but continued. "If any of you have questions about myself, feel free to ask."

The next several minutes had Amelia explaining her work, her credentials, military history, her ideas for the group, emergency strategies, etc. Mundane things that NEST would ensure and opportune for her, supplies. She learned that Ratchet, the red and yellow Autobot, was the medic of the group, and she made a mental note to spend a lot of time with him in the next few weeks. His mentorship would be imperative.

The questions came smooth and were easy to answer, all until Mudflap opened his mouth.

"Girl, why yo arm and leg metal?" he asked, tact out the window.

Amelia winced, but she had expected the question. She held up a hand before Skids could officially run him into the ground. She caught several curious glances from the Autobots even though they hushed Mudflap for being so insensitive.

"Really, boy. Have you learned nothing of human mannerism?" Ratchet inquired, but he turned to Amelia, ready for her answer.

_Well, not getting out of this one,_ she thought. But the question hadn't bothered her in years. She was, however, slightly surprised that even Optimus had turned slightly towards the group, his conversation with Lennox, who had descended from the balcony to speak with him as soon as the questioning had begun, momentarily paused.

Amelia tapped a metal finger against the railing, her eyes lowering to the curve of her wrist as she began. "It was a younger me six years ago, just barely 22. My infantry team was on a normal scout round, nothing at all interesting. But we caught a smoke signal out of our normal observatory range on a nearby base town."

She remembered being burnt to hell from the desert sun, the sand feeling like whips against her sun bitten cheeks.

"We turned up over some dunes toward them, we raced. I hadn't remembered a time I ran faster. But the smell…"

The smell had been awful, burnt flesh suffocating the air around her, the smoke stinging her eyes.

"The base had been ambushed. By the time we got there, it was toast."

Every building and hut was on fire, the stone walls crumbled from the blasts of bombs. She remembered not being able to tell friend from foe in the ashes, the corpses all looking the same. Amelia's brow furrowed.

"Honestly, I'm not sure who stepped on the mine, me or him. All I know is that one moment I was walking further into the town, the next I was twenty feet from where I had been with nothing holding still."

The sky had rolled, danced before her eyes. There was no hold, no ground, no stability, and, thank god, no pain. She had just floated for so long, not daring to come back down. Somewhere in her subconscious, she knew that she was dying and if she tried to find that link between herself and gravity, she would definitely die. So Amelia had just hovered in that state, for how long she had no idea. She couldn't remember being moved, the helicopter, nor even the faces of those who saved her life. She didn't really mind. Some memories your brain protects you from on purpose.

When Amelia blinked from her thoughts, the hangar was still quiet. She gave a smile to the Autobots. "It was a long time ago." She pushed off from the railing. "If there are any more questions…?"

The hangar remained silent for several heartbeats before Ratchet finally stepped forward. "I believe that is it for tonight. Thank you, Ace."

Amelia nodded. Lennox beckoned her over, and she left the group of quiet Autobots to join him.

* * *

Only a few hours later, after sharing dinner with Lennox and Epps, Amelia wandered outside the huge bay garage door. The setting sun cast great hues of orange and pink across the desert sky, the sand throwing long shadows over the ground. The air was dry and still warm, but significantly cooler from the loss of direct sunlight. The wind tangled Amelia's crimson curls gently, and she rose a hand to block the sun's light from her squinting eyes.

It was then she noticed a much taller shadow than the rest standing several yards before her. She hesitated for only a moment before Amelia moved across the packed sand closing the distance to stand beside Optimus Prime. Being this close, she was forced to realize the sheer size difference between them. He stood at least thirty feet tall, with his arms crossed across his chest as he too stood facing the setting sun. The two were quiet for several moments, the air not uncomfortable but very aware the other was there.

After some time, the sun had begun to slip completely beneath the horizon, the desert slowly growing darker. Amelia was just about to quietly leave, realizing idly that they hadn't shared a single word, before Optimus broke the silence with a low voice.

"Was he a friend?" he asked, his survey of the sun unbroken.

"Who?" she asked in confusion, glancing up at him. The sudden conversation had thrown her off.

"The man who stepped on the mine with you," he clarified, still not looking at her.

"Oh," she paused, her eyes shifting to the orange sun. "His name was Craig. Craig Garvey." She smiled fondly at the sunset. "He loved the color orange. And yes, he was my friend."

Some had told her he had saved her life, his body having blocked most of hers from the blast.

Optimus was quiet for another moment, and Amelia turned to leave, suddenly not enjoying the orange sunset quite as much. Optimus' voice stopped her.

"I am sorry for you loss," he said, and then he turned, those impossibly blue optics finally looking at her.

They stood like that for several breaths, Amelia rooted to the spot by just that gaze alone. The sunlight reflected off of the metal of his shoulders, dancing light onto the sand between them.

After a minute Amelia said a quiet 'thank you' and was gone.

* * *

**AN: If you were a Transformer, what would your name be and are you an Autobot or a Decepticon?**

**REVIEW MY DARLINGS!**


	5. Test

**_A/N: Phew! That took a little longer than planned, but I feel every author starts a new chapter out with saying that. Enjoy!_**

* * *

_General Morshower glared at the papers before him, his grimace tucked behind folded hands. A headache was blooming behind his eyelids, and he itched for a strong cup of coffee. The destruction in Mission City was moving the process of finalizing the creation of NEST along quickly, but the current problem presenting itself, one of the final roadblocks between him and potentially the most imperative group the nation would ever form, seemed to make it all come crashing down._

_Growing frustrated, he shoved the papers away impatiently. "So call in a tactical engineer team," he implored, glaring at the man sitting at the table with him. The suit was already shaking his head before he finished._

_"I'm afraid that jeopardizes the mission, General. To bring in a team, consisting of ten, fifteen souls minimum would open the threat of compromise to the secrecy of NEST." _

_Morshower leaned back in his chair. "Are you telling me you guys are still trying to keep this under wraps?" He snorted. "Half of Mission City was destroyed—"_

_"The media is calling it a 'government experiment gone wrong'." The suit answered simply. He leaned forward, placing a hand on the table. His eyes met Morshower's in a steely gaze. His next words were spoken slowly, meant to be taken very seriously. "It is the higher up's request that this—"his hands made a slow, wide arc, "_never_ come to public light." The man settled back into his chair, crossing his hands in his lap. The movement reminded Morshower of a lap dog. "We will allow you one man, two maximum," the suit said, his tone undisputable. _

_"One man?" Morshower bellowed. "You expect _one_ man to do what an entire engineer team would struggle with?" He slid the folders farther from himself, standing from the table in frustration. "Call off the whole project then! Your conditions for the construction of NEST have been borderline outrageous. I have bent over backwards to see that this organization is contrived! But this, that we supply human counterparts to the team's 'medical' division for the Autobots. Maybe, maybe with a team that is given ample time. But there is no way _one_ man can—"_

_"Sir."_

_Morshower's attention snapped to a young soldier that had previously been standing silently in the corner of the room with two others. _

_"What is it Major?" Morshower directed, trying to keep the growl from his voice. He liked Will Lennox; he had fought valiantly in Mission City when the world as they knew it came crashing down. It had made the choice of his promotion easy, even easier to appoint him the bridge between himself and the Autobots as an official of NEST._

_Lennox cleared his throat. "I think I might know someone who would meet the challenge," he said hesitantly. _

_Morshower's eyes narrowed. "And who might this individual be that would stand in as the engineer of NEST?" He slapped a hand against the folder on the table. "_One_ man that could possibly be an adequate substitution for fifteen men's brains and work?"_

_Lennox gave a quiet snort, glancing at Epps who shrugged with a lift of eyebrows and a poorly contained smile. "Actually, General. _Her_ name is Amelia Edson."_

* * *

"After that, it was just a matter of finding her," Lennox said through a mouthful of sandwich. He stood leaning against the bumper of a sand ATV, ankles crossed. He had just returned from morning PT, his face sand and sweat covered when Optimus had approached him with status updates. The simple conversation had soon turned to their engineer, who was currently perched atop the high rise catwalk facing Ratchet, scribbling furiously in a huge binder across the hangar. Lennox regarded her with an easy smile on his face, brushing his hands together after finishing the sandwich. Turning back to face Optimus, he was mildly surprised to find Optimus watching her as well.

He smirked. "Anything else you want to know?"

He was met with azure hues, Lennox's subtle implication going either ignored or unnoticed. "She is very eager to learn about us." Optimus turned back to look at the human woman facing away from him as Lennox made a sound of agreement. Her scarlet curls were pulled back harshly away from her face, gathered into a disheveled mass at the base of her neck. His optics whirled, zooming in onto the notebook she held, discovering its contents to be the workings of the spark.

She had drawn the chamber, a detailed depiction of anatomy on a span of graph paper. Every other space on the page had been filled with notes, tips, things to research more into, and most surprisingly her own judgment and theories of the Transformer's power source.

He would have to correct her in some of them.

When Optimus Prime blinked back into normal sight, he was unsurprised to find emerald eyes locked on him. He found it peculiar that humans always seemed to sense when being watched. He turned from them, focusing on Lennox once more.

It had been well over four months since the red-headed hellcat had graced the base with her presence. Most of this time had been spent with diagnostics and preparing. Ace, who had arrived with hundreds of books now possessed triple the count. Every Autobot had over twenty manually written in notebooks on them, each categorized by appendage, inner, outer, and mechanics in thick black marker on the cover. On the inside, Ace had drawn the parts according to alphabetical order, and written Ratchet's instructions on how to fix a hundred different things that could go wrong to that part. They were color coded, book marked, dog-eared, sharpied, and sorted into piles labeling which Autobot it belonged to. Every day the stacks grew.

"How she'll memorize all of that, I've got no idea." Lennox had said, folding his arms across his chest. He smiled up at Optimus. "But I guess that's what we picked her for, huh?"

Optimus lifted his gaze to the desert horizon. There were only a few short hours left of day light until the sun began its final countdown to darkness.

He knew that Ace worked hard to do just that, memorize everything she had been told. Often when he followed the sunset at the end of the day he would notice her curled in a chair she had dragged from the hangar, feet bear and toes in the cooling sand with loosely braided wet hair. On her lap she balanced three or so notebooks, the cap of a pen caught between her teeth. She wore glasses when she did this, thin framed lenses that always settled at the end of her nose no matter how many times she pushed them up. Half the time she never noticed, and he would watch her for several moments scan and rescan each page, tracing over the notes every so often before bringing his attention back to the sun.

Once in a while Ace would join him.

For a moment he would be standing there by himself, admiring the setting sun, and the next the sand would quietly shift behind him and she would appear having left the pile of notebooks on the seat of the chair forgotten. They rarely spoke in these times, just watched knowing the other was aware of their presence in comfortable silence.

Optimus Prime had long decided Ace was a young, forceful soul. She was loud, stubborn, and quick to anger, especially when the twins broke something. Her tenacious efforts in learning and studying them earned her the respect of the Autobots, and when General Morshower had initiated a meeting with Ace, Lennox returned with a grin and spoke loudly of his pride in her. Ace mumbled later that Lennox got all the praise just for finding her, but her words were softened by a smirk.

A sudden shriek in the hangar ripped Optimus from his reflections.

* * *

Amelia nearly dropped the notebook she was holding as the alarm blared through the hangar. She resisted the urge to cover her ears, narrowing her eyes up to Ratchet who was rising from his kneeled position quickly.

"What _is_ that?" She yelled, her eyes searching for whatever was causing such a distressed sound. People were moving quickly throughout the hangar, teams in uniforms and guns entered through the sliding doors and were running to the end of the hangar towards the giant doors. She noticed Graham, a soldier technician who manned the computer most of the time, was throwing himself into a chair and typing furiously. He stood, motioned over someone and shouted something she couldn't make out from the distance. Beyond the giant garage door of the hangar, fighter jets were being pulled into view.

"Ace!" Ratchet called, and her attention flew back to him. Sideswipe and Jolt had appeared on either side of him, their expressions determined. "There has been a Decepticon attack. We are needed." They turned from her, making their ways to the hangar opening. Jolt gave her a lasting glance and a small parting nod.

Amelia dropped the book to the floor of the catwalk, diving for the ladder. She slid down its rails to the hangar floor, and broke off into a run when her feet hit the ground. Her eyes searched for Lennox, trying to maneuver around the hurried bodies in the hangar. Finally spotting him speaking hurriedly to a man in a suit with a gun sling over his shoulder, she quickly made her way over.

By the time she got there the suit looked angry and Lennox looked growingly irritated, but the conversation looked done because the suit brushed past him. Lennox made a move to turn on his heel before Amelia grabbed his shoulder. He looked unsurprised to see her.

"Good, there you are. Decepticons have been spotted in New Mexico, near the California border. The 'bots are going in air way, but I need you—"

"I'm going, too," she said, "with them."

"No."

Amelia reeled back. "What?"

Lennox was shaking his head, lifting a hand to grasp her shoulder. "I need you here. You can't come, it's too dangerous to take a civilian into a warzone."

Amelia's brow furrowed. "Civilian?" She hadn't been called that in a long, long while. "Lennox, you can't not take me! I'm no use here!"

"Correction, you're no use dead." He said, and his tone left no room for argument. "Amelia," she frowned at him, his voice having taken on the tone her father did when he was about to say something she wouldn't like, "We can't afford having to worry about you while we're out there." His gaze flickered to someone waving at him. She knew it was time to go, but a growing worriment was forming in her stomach. Lennox turned from her, but she moved in front of him, walking backwards as he continued forward.

"Lennox, what if something happens?" Amelia was surprised to hear the strain in her voice, but brushed it off in favor of Lennox's response.

"That's why I need you here." He waved to a helicopter's pilot before turning his attention to her. "If something goes wrong, Ace, I need you safe. I need you here." With that Lennox jogged away, motioning for a group to follow him. They boarded the helicopter together, leaving Amelia glaring at the pilot who looked as confused as someone could look with sunglasses.

"Hey, don't worry lit'le hellcat. We'll be back soon, no problem." Ironhide came up from behind her, the twins in tow. He looked puffed up, ready for the excitement of battle.

"Yeah, lil mama! We 'bout to whoop us some Decepticon ass!" Skids bellowed, him and his loudly agreeing twin coming to stand in front of her.

Amelia sighed.

"Do not worry," Sideswipe rolled up with them, a smirk in his voice. He raised a clenched hand. "We are going to destroy those Decepticons."

Amelia crossed her arms, raising emerald hues to look at each of the Autobots around her. She felt a surge of protectiveness swell in her chest, and she promised to curse Lennox to his dying day. The need to say something arose, and time was pressing on her back. She glanced away.

"Come back safe," she heard herself say.

There was a wave of good-hearted replies and laughter, and Amelia thought she could pick out "you love us" in the mix. She smiled despite herself, wondering if rolling her eyes was an acceptable response.

"Autobots."

Amelia turned towards the air field, where Optimus Prime stood a ways away from the group with Ratchet and Jolt. His blue optics met her green for a heartbeat before rising to meet his team's. A helicopter's rotors began to turn behind him.

"Let's roll out."

* * *

Amelia was a fidgeter.

She paced, drummed her fingers, bobbed her leg, and even resorted to braiding her hair repetitively. She sat at her desk, hands tapping the surface while her leg bounced. She rested her chin in her metal hand, staring unseeing at a pile of blueprints, twirling a strand of hair idly. She even jogged around the hangar once or twice.

Just to _do_ something.

They'd been gone a little over six hours, and even though she could definitely see the soldiers who had stayed behind to man the computers and tracking instruments speak to Lennox and give coordinates, they refused to let her near anything, or even give her an update on the battle. She leaned back in her chair to look beyond the wall of the bay at the ten or so men crowded around the computer tables, emerald eyes narrowed. She supposed if looks could actually kill they would be great balls of flame by now, so she sighed and gave up, shifting to rest her forehead on the desk with her fingers shoved in her hair.

A tight knot of worry had long since settled in the pit of her stomach. And each hour doubled its size.

She knew, logically, they were fine. What was one or two stray Decepticons against the strength of the Autobots? She had seen their machinery and what they were capable of. Amelia found that going through Ironhide's weaponry log or Optimus' dead lift record eased some of the tension in her abdomen. But then again, Amelia had also seen the destruction Megatron alone had caused in the dam when he was reactivated.

Amelia's eyes slipped closed.

She surprised herself. She hadn't realized herself capable of feeling such distress for what, in essence, were only machines.

_No,_ she corrected herself. _Not only machines._

In the past four months, the Autobots had begun to dig their way into her heart. It had been miniscule at first, sharing laughs with the twins, study times with Ratchet, even some training games the 'bots had coerced her into refereeing. She looked forward to the beginning of the work day, and had thoroughly enjoyed the time spent studying each and every one of them, hours upon hours of just talking to one of them while she performed diagnostics and analytical scans. She had learned more than she ever thought she would about Cybertron and how each one of them remembers its beauty, and were greatly saddened by its destruction.

She began to notice it more when she opted to referee, when she started asking history questions to Ratchet rather than scientific, when she wanted to draw their faces, for her own collection and not the blueprints, when she started answering to 'hellcat', and when she established the silent sunset watches with Optimus after too long of a work day.

The Autobots had become more than just work to Amelia. They had become more than projects she would have to study and memorize. These beings, these alien, and yet in so many ways human, beings had submerged a part of her that worried, that fretted for their safety in this moment.

But most of all, a part of her that surged with vigilance.

Amelia rose from the desk, a steely resolution in her motion as she stood, gaze shifting out the door of the hangar to the night sky.

She would protect these beings that had found a relationship with her beyond engineer and machine. They had become her company, her team in this war. They had become her friends. Amelia had known for some time now that they had passed a certain point in her job description, but with impending danger the acceptance of the outcome was much harder to ignore.

So she picked up a notebook, telling herself she would be ready for whatever came through the hangar door. Whether it be dirty and dented, but smiling and safe Autobots, or the scene that was quickly rising to become her worst nightmare.

Amelia's brow furrowed, and she set the notebook down. A soldier was running towards her, pressing a hand to his ear to fix a headset in place. He stopped in front of her, sliding off the headset and holding it out to her.

"Miss Edson, it is Major Lennox." He said stoically.

Amelia snatched the headset from him, sliding it on with growing anxiety. She ignored the slightly peeved off look the soldier was giving her.

"Lennox? It's Ace—"

"Amelia, be ready. Ratchet took a hit in the chest, blown a hole straight through and nicked part of the chamber. He's spilling Energon everywhere and Optimus says he needs a fuse in place. We're on our way back to base now, less than an hour out."

There was a moment of seizure where Amelia felt the way her heart constricted should have done some lasting damage, but she was already moving into the bay, grabbing the top book from Ratchet's pile and flipping through it before Lennox finished. Blood was pounding in her ears, but Amelia thought she sounded surprisingly calm. "Connect me to Optimus," she said curtly, her eyes flying between pages.

There was no question on the other line, only a faint static before,

"Amelia."

Amelia's heart squeezed faintly. Optimus sounded raw. "Tell me exactly where the hole is, and how much of the chamber is nicked," she said, forcing a numbness to clear her head.

"His bottom right, four inches," he answered with no hesitation.

Amelia had no time to wonder if he knew she would ask, instead flipping violently until she found the page she wanted, the third quadrant of Ratchet's chamber. She scanned the pages notes silently before realizing Optimus was still on the line.

"Get him to me, Prime." With that, Amelia clicked off the connection, straightening and grabbing the open notebook. She rushed from the bay, shoving the headset into the chest of the soldier as she passed him.

"Someone bring me my welding gloves!"

* * *

Two hours later Amelia stood outside the base in the beginning light of the rising sun.

The air was chilly, but the coolness of the wind was welcome on her sweat soaked skin from using the acetylene torch for over an hour on Rachet's chest. The damage had been not as bad as she feared, and the weld was fairly simple after using a mild corrosive to rid the area of ruined metal so she could see the wound more clearly. After fusing several Energon capillaries back together, Ratchet was out of danger, and Optimus informed her the damaged metal would regenerate. The actual fusing is what took the longest because it was such detailed small work. Amelia's back hurt from leaning over for so long.

The loss of Energon took a huge toll on Ratchet however. Halfway through the procedure, Ratchet had slipped into stasis. The change had startled her, to a point she yelled for Optimus, but he had been right behind her.

"He is alright, Amelia. When a Transformer has suffered an injury such as this one, they may fall into stasis for focused healing. It is much like human unconsciousness."

She had filed the new information away to inquire more in depth about later and continued her objective. The work passed by more quickly when she got a hang of slowly welding the capillaries back together, and soon she was straightening and lifting the mask from her face, sweat droplets running down her face and neck.

"It's done," she breathed, sliding down from Ratchet's chest into the awaiting palm of Optimus who lowered her slowly to the ground while he knelt.

"I thank you, Amelia," he said quietly as he straightened to a stand, those impossibly blue optics whirling rapidly as he blinked. She knew he was worried for his friend.

She nodded up at him, and he turned away to bring those uncertain eyes to Ratchet's sleeping form.

A particularly strong gust of cold air raised goose bumps on her flesh arm. She wondered briefly if she should have said some words of encouragement to him, but quickly dismissed the idea. He knew much more about how Ratchet would heal from the injury than she did, and if he told her he was alright, then she would just have to believe him.

But the mostly dissolved knot of worry told her everything would be fine.

Amelia let out a long breath, letting go of the built up tension in her. She had done what she had resolved herself to do, and she felt satisfied. Ratchet had taught her well on the welding of their metal, and now the hours of practice she had done didn't feel at all as boring and tedious as she had once believed in the beginning. Now she thanked his audacity for putting up with her biting remarks and irritation, for without it the process tonight would have taken that much longer.

A presence approached her from behind, and she turned to see Lennox come to stand beside her, his arms crossed. He looked much better than when he had first arrived back, dirty and cut up with a bleeding lip. Now he was showered, bandaged and looking as tall and proud as ever.

"How is he?" she asked,

"Optimus says he's gonna be fine," he assured her with a smile.

Amelia nodded, the last of the worry draining out of her. Ratchet was going to be fine, and this made Amelia very happy. They stood like that for some time, enjoying the arise of colors and warmth into the desert sky.

Sunsets and sunrises differed greatly in the essence of how they came to be to Amelia. In a sunset, the transition is slow with deep colors and lasting effects even after the sun has descended from sight. The colors stretch across the horizon in riveting lines that cascade into the slow darkness with the dusting of dim stars. But in a sunrise, the color is abrupt, like a knife was taken to the horizon and bled into the sky.

"You did good, Ace," Lennox said suddenly.

Perhaps it was because the past eight hours had been full of worry and tension for her while she basically sat twiddling her thumbs while they were off fighting. Or maybe because her back and head hurt from being in a bent position for over an hour. Maybe it was just because she was still cold and was tired of standing still and silent in sunlight.

Whatever the reason, Amelia broke out in a grin, a laugh escaping through her lips. She leaned close, putting her head on his shoulder, and his arm came up to rest across hers.

"Real good, Ace."

* * *

**A/N: I watched Transformers 4. I loved it. Except for one teeny tiny little detail.**

**Tessa.**

**She was...probably the most pathetic character I have ever encountered in a movie. Like...I had a new respect for Mikaela after watching this movie. That's how bad she was. Maybe I just have a problem with pathetic female characters. Like...Can Transformers puhlease get a real woman in there and not a stumbling crying scared USELESS one?**

**Anyway I'm not going to give away any spoilers, I just had to vent that.**

**Don't forget to review! 3**


End file.
